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THE FED PAGE Media types bring it on home
Park on Wednesday night until the media team rallied for a 13-7 win before a raucous crowd that included Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House GOP leader John Boehner and much of the House leadership on both sides. The lawmakers relied on stellar pitching from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) to build their lead. The media players were held scoreless through three innings by Gillibrand’s baffling sinker. She brushed off the opposition’s efforts to rattle her with chants of “David Paterson,” the tarnished New York governor who appointed her. It didn’t hurt that the hurlers were backed by superb fielding from shortstop Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Shelley Moore “Rocket Arm” Capito (R-W.Va.) at third and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) at second. Power-hitting, sparked by a lead-off, stand-up double by Wasserman Schultz in the bottom of the first, staked the members to a 5-2 lead through four. The lawmakers were up 7-4 until the top of the sixth, when the media bats, aided by some walks and errors, came alive. They exploded for four runs in the sixth — after Kasie Hunt of Politico and Emily Ortman of Roll Call smoked back-to-back doubles to center field — and then added five more runs in the seventh. The reporters fumed as some controversial base-running and other calls went for the House members — but there were no bench-clearing brawls. (They write the rules, but we write the stories.) Catcher Trish Turner, a Fox
T
News producer who had never played competitive softball, was named the most valuable player for the winners for two great outs at the plate and then for mowing down Rep. Betsy Markey
he congressional women’s softball team led in the early innings at Guy Mason
AL KAMEN In the Loop
(D-Colo.), the catcher, in a dramatic play at home. Markey took an awesome hit
from Turner in stride, but the ball popped out of her glove, allowing Turner to score. The House members named themselves all most valuable players. The charity game in Glover
Park raised $5,000 from an estimated 500 fans for the Young Survival Coalition for women younger than 40 who have breast cancer. We hear that the extensive pregame trash talk continued after the game as the politicians took to grousing and spinning that the only reason they lost was because the press played college kids as ringers. The media types, citing the line-up cards, insist that’s false. They countered that the home plate umpire, Frank Cushing, turned out to be a lobbyist and former staff director for the House appropriations committee. A special prosecutor will be appointed as soon as the BP hearings are over.
Judgeship has sailed So you’re out there in your big
law office — rich, bored and slow filling out your White House vetting forms for that judgeship? Your nomination still hasn’t gone up to the Senate? Well, pal, you can pull out that new black robe hanging in your closet and kiss it goodbye. Ain’t gonna happen for you —
at least not this year. Even if the White House sends up your nomination today, the Senate calendar is likely to kill your bid for the job. The Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination hearings are set for
FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Breast cancer survivor Debbie Wasserman Schultz, with daughter Rebecca, hugs teammate Grace Napolitano. Wasserman Schultz hit a stand-up double in the bottom of the first in the charity event against media types. To see a photo gallery of the game, go to
washingtonpost.com/photo.
the week of June 28. The senators are off the next week for the Fourth of July. They return in mid-July for four weeks and then they are off until after Labor Day, when about one-third of them will be worried about their political futures, not yours. Worse, the politics are not on your side. Back in the day, not all that long ago, if a
non-controversial district court nominee came up in June, there’d be every chance of getting a hearing and maybe confirmation by fall. But those days are pretty much over as both parties stall nominees. For example, a Democratic
Senate confirmed 100 judges under President George W. Bush
in his first two years, including even more controversial folks such as Judge Dennis Shedd. Shedd was confirmed 55 to 44 in November 2002, only five days after he got to the floor of the Democratic-controlled Senate. Then the Democrats blocked judicial nominees, sparking a bitter 2005 Senate battle that ended with a compromise over a possible GOP move that could have denied Democrats the right to filibuster. More recently, the Republican
minority has been stalling nominees, even some who’ve been sent to the Senate floor with unanimous or near-unanimous judiciary committee approval, such as Albert Diaz and Jim
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Wynn. Their nominations have been on the floor since late January. Even if, by some miracle, all 19
of President Obama’s nominees still pending in committee as of Thursday, and all 26 pending on the Senate floor, get confirmed, only 76 Obama judges will have
been confirmed for the federal bench in his first two years. That’s not counting two for the Supreme Court if Kagan is confirmed. (This is in contrast to 100 confirmed in Bush’s first two years and 128 in President Bill Clinton’s first two years.)
kamena@washpost.com A policy of diminishing returns?
Postal Service auditors raise questions about the practice of repairing instead of replacing its aging fleet of delivery trucks. Fed Worker, B3
Complaints about software and tech training A Defense Department employee says the federal workforce lacks the abilities to use equipment to its potential. Fed Worker, B3
After 32 years, still waiting on FDA sunscreen regulations
by Lyndsey Layton The Bee Gees were topping the
charts with “Saturday Night Fe- ver,” the first test-tube baby had just been born and gas cost 63 cents a gallon when the Food and Drug Administration began writ- ing regulations for sunscreens. Thirty-two years later, the agen-
cy has yet to issue its final reg- ulations. That means sunscreen manu-
facturers are not legally required to prove that their products meet advertising claims such as “water- proof,” “broad-based” or “lasts all day,” or that they offer a specific sun-protection factor, or SPF. In fact, several public health and consumer groups have taken issue with the SPF claims made by some sunscreen manufacturers, saying that the products offer less protection than advertised. At least nine class-action lawsuits have been filed against sunscreen makers, alleging false advertising. Since the agency began work- ing on the regulations in 1978, the FDA has received two requests from seven U.S. senators, a peti- tion from one state attorney gen- eral and a congressional mandate to finish the job. “It’s truly irresponsible,” said
Jane Houlihan, senior vice presi- dent for research at the Environ- mental Working Group, a non- profit environmental advocacy group that has repeatedly asked the FDA to complete the sun- screen regulations. “They are dec- ades late in getting this done.” The FDA did issue final rules for sunscreens in 1999, but they never took effect. The agency stayed the rules after the Cosmet- ic, Toiletry and Fragrance Associa- tion objected to certain aspects and agency officials decided that the rules were not comprehensive enough, because they dealt only with sunscreens that offered pro- tection from UVB radiation and not UVA radiation. UVB rays are the primary cause of sunburn, while UVA rays lead to premature aging of the skin. Both types of ultraviolet radiation can lead to skin cancer. Manufac- turers can voluntarily follow the testing and labeling standards of the 1999 rule but are not required to do so, and the FDA has no pow- er to enforce them. The FDA again published pro- posed rules in 2007, this time gov-
erning sunscreens that protect against both UVA and UVB radia- tion. The draft regulations would prohibit companies from labeling sunscreens with an SPF greater than “50+,” because the FDA said the higher values are ‘inherently misleading” and there is “no as- surance that the specific values themselves are in fact truthful.” While the agency continues to work on the rules, more sun- screens are being promoted as having SPF values greater than 50. The Environmental Working Group said about one in six sun- screens lists SPF values greater than 50, compared with one in eight last year. Of 500 sunscreens analyzed by the environmental group in its recent sunscreen guide, the group recommends 39. Some dermatologists and sci- entists worry that products carry- ing high-SPF labels encourage people to increase their exposure to the sun, escalating the risk for skin damage and cancer. “It gives a false sense of securi-
ty,” said Margaret Parsons, a der- matologist in Sacramento who serves on the board of the Amer- ican Academy of Dermatology. “They see that higher number and think they can just put it on in the morning and stay out all day.” The FDA “is taking forever” to issue regulations, Parsons said. “I appreciate the effort to do it cor- rectly and scientifically, but it’s created all this confusion at the consumer level.” Shelly Burgess, an FDA spokes- woman, said the 2007 proposed rule got delayed because the agen- cy received 3,000 public com- ments, as opposed to 100 submis- sions it typically gets for a pro- posed regulation. Burgess said in an e-mail, “Some of these submissions in- cluded new data which require scientific evaluation. Therefore, developing the sunscreen final rule has required more FDA re- sources than . . . anticipated.” The FDA intends to publish the
final rules — for real — in October. Under most circumstances, it would take effect a year after be- ing published. But manufacturers are already asking the FDA for more time, saying it will take more than a year to meet requirements. The FDA has not decided
whether it will sanction yet an- other delay, Burgess said.
laytonl@washpost.com
GREAT GIFT!
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